When It Takes More Faith to Come Back: Trusting God in Re-entry

Book Launch Announcement

I am pleased to share the release of my new book, When It Takes More Faith to Come Back: Trusting God in Re-entry, a spiritual companion for those going through the experience of cross-cultural re-entry, which includes what many know as reverse culture shock.

Re-entry was one of the most difficult transitions I’ve ever been through. I knew about it. I had shepherded others through it. I had even gone through it before in smaller doses. But transitioning back after being in Asia for almost a decade was something I was not ready for. It was a transition full of loss and death, but one that also birthed new life and hope.

Here is one such birth!

There are some great re-entry resources, but when I was “really in it,” I was looking for more spiritual insight and help on the journey than I was finding. At some point I developed a desire to create a structure and scriptural journey to help people move towards Jesus in their re-entry transition and process some of their story in ways that facilitate healing and hope.

But I didn’t start at hope. I was really struggling for a while. I was overwhelmed by grief, anxiety, stress, fear, confusion, and at some point shame from how much it felt like my life had gone off the tracks. Maybe you can relate? But somewhere in the vulnerability and wilderness of my re-entry experience, I began to encounter God in ways that both anchored me and shepherded me through a very dark season. That’s where this book was birthed.

The book includes 40 devotionals that include passages of re-entry-relevant Scripture that were significant for me in re-entry as well as snapshots of my own story (or my family’s) that readers in re-entry may relate to. My heart was to help you connect Scripture to your story and open the door for you to connect with my story so that you have reminders that whatever you are experiencing, many others have gone before you and there are many going through it right now with you.

The book also includes personal processing and conversational prompts to help the reader process their transition experience as well as the spiritual significance of where God may be at work in those experiences.

Re-entry is overwhelming for most people, for one reason or another. And there are many forces pulling us to handle the chaos in our own efforts and strategies. Fewer voices are reminding us that we’re not alone, that God is with us when we feel like we are just trying to keep our head above water. Even fewer tend to point us to Jesus with faith, hope, and expectation for all that God may want to give us in such a season of struggle and disorientation.

Re-entry is hard. How we go through it matters, and we need God and others on that journey. It would be a privilege to be one of those with you as you seek to walk by faith through re-entry.

To order a copy, you can order at the Amazon page linked here or the other major book retailers: